OF • 



OF THE 



FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



W\ L. SHELDON 



Tunrn OF THE ETHICAL SOCIETV OF ST. LOUIS 

IB91 



P 



3Z 



1511 



. 544 



TO 

PROF. FELIX ADLEK, 

UNDER WHOM I SERVED MY APPRENTICESHIP 

FOB TWO TEARS 

IN NEW YORK CITY, 

THIS ADDRESS IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 



" The Free Man meditates on life rather than on death. 
diet Spinoza. 



" The true dignity and excellence of man lies in his moral 
qualities, that is, in virtue ; virtue is the common inheritance of 
alV—From a Translation of The Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo 
XIII. on " The Condition of Labor." 



GIFT 

MRS. W00DR0W WILSOflf 

NOV. 25, 1539 



Tt>e Meat)ii)<£ of bt)e Epical 
M.oven)^r)b. 



I. 



What is the significance of the new Empha- 
sis on Ethics which is so manifest both in 
Europe and America? It would almost seem 
as though a different spirit were abroad. 
What does it imply? We have been asked 
this question again and again. It appears to 
be assumed that we could answer it in a sin- 
gle word. There are so many different meth- 
ods by which to grasp or express the meaning 
of reforms. Men do not appreciate the con- 
trast between movements that can define 
themselves through a body of formulas or a 
declaration of principles, and others which can 
only explain their purpose as a spirit or ten- 
dency. It is this latter characteristic which 
illustrates the new emphasis now being laid 
on Ethics. It has no creed, but it is rather a 
spirit. It is not a particular reform, but a 
world-tendency. 



We are to remember that whatever deals 
with human character as such, is also linked 
with emotions ; and we cannot define the lat- 
ter in mathematical speech. When I ask a 
person what does he cling to life for, he may 
know perfectly well ; but he cannot put it in 
words or express it in a single sentence. We 
judge a man's nature by what he does. In 
the same way we are to make up our minds 
with regard to historic movements and re- 
forms, by what they are trying to do, by the 
spirit they display, or by the trend of charac- 
ter that may be observed, and not by any dec- 
laration of principles. 

It would be quite impossible to locate this 
new Emphasis on Ethics among any particular 
body of men. It is becoming apparent every- 
where. The universities of learning and the 
schools of philosophy give signs of it. We 
may discern it in the late encyclical letter of 
the Pontiff. It is manifest among the laity 
and the clergy ; it is felt deeply outside and 
inside of the churches. No institution and 
no class of men may claim exclusive monopo- 
ly of this new tendency. 

We refer to it as new. By that I do not 
wish to imply that it has just appeared in the 
world. On the contrary, we could rather say 



that, as a teaching, it had its birth among 
the great Ethical Leaders of by-gone ages — 
Buddha and Socrates, Isaiah or Jesus. The 
"Sermon on the Mount" is distinctively and 
more than anything else a discourse in Ethics. 
When, therefore, we refer to it as new, we 
think of it rather, as in part, only a revival. 
We are only sounding a neglected chord in 
history. Men have to take up once more an 
aspect of religion, awakened chiefly by those 
inspired seers of earlier times. They were 
the leaders. We have to carry it on, although 
we may be the modest and reverent disciples 
of their spirit, rather than of their exact 
teaching. I can but feel that that is what 
they themselves would have preferred that 
we should do. 

This emphasis in the direction of Ethics 
means, if it means anything, that instead of 
consecrating human attention and enthusiasm 
x/on worship, we are to concentrate it rather on 
the way we live and work. It indicates, there- 
fore, a reversal from the usual process of 
teaching. We are to pay regard to human 
character more than to what men believe. A 
man's conduct may determine more clearly 
just what he is, than his opinions about the 
Deity. 



There is this one difference between ordi- 
nary beliefs and those that are concerned with 
religion. The latter are something which can 
not in the full sense be imparted through in- 
struction. They may be accepted in that way 
by the mind, but they do not then become an 
essential element in a man's whole self. They 
have to grow out of a person's own life and 
experience, else they cannot well have perma- 
nent influence. What a man is, rather than 
what he has been taught, is liable to deter- 
mine what he actually thinks about God. The 
important consideration, therefore, would be, 
rather to awaken the spirit of that Being in a 
man's heart, than to fill his mind with a cer- 
tain belief about that Being. The great con- 
sideration would be to induce men to care more 
to live the kind of a life followed by Jesus, 
than to throw the emphasis of feeling and en- 
thusiasm on the worship of Jesus. Instead 
of preaching belief in a Deity, love of Christ 
or faith in the Bible, would it not be better 
to endeavor to develop that kind of heart in 
men, to stimulate that form of outer and in- 
ner life, by which they would be lead of their 
own accord to come to the True Love, the 
True Faith, or the True Belief. 

Keligious teachers everywhere, I believe, 



arc becoming conscious that something must 
be done to put an end to this appalling differ- 
ence between what a man believes and the 
way he lives. If making him believe just 
right does not induce him to live just right, 
possibly a reversal of that method would be 
more successful. It is essential that some- 
thing be done, aud that quickly, toward re- 
fining and elevating human character. It 
may be possible to accomplish this by turning 
human attention toward what the world is 
suffering, toward the needs of our fellow men, 
toward the perfection and purification of our 
inward nature, just as much as through the 
sublime Sacraments of the Church. Eeligious 
people are as a rule much more fond of the 
"Gospel of St. John" than they are of the 
"Sermon on the Mount." That beautiful 
Gospel gives rich emotions ; it kindles love 
and adoration. The trouble with the Sermon 
on the Mount has been that it exacts too 
much ; nevertheless it is true that if more at- 
tention is not given to that Sermon, that is, 
if more emphasis is not laid on Ethics, we 
may begin to observe a decline in the power 
or influence of Judaism or Christianity. Peo- 
ple much prefer the emotional to an applied 
religion. But applied religion means an Ethi- 
cal Movement. 



8 



It is to be understood that I am simply giv- 
ing a personal opinion on this great problem, 
at the close of these five years of effort. My 
convictions on this question come through di- 
rect contact with men. This Ethical Move- 
ment now presents itself to me as an existing 
fact. It may have been this long before, to 
others ; but it had not been so to my own con- 
sciousness. I have seen it to some extent do 
actual work. It has grown and developed in 
my thought, from this experience and these 
observations ; and now it stands before me in 
another and a brighter light, than when 
the first word was said here five years ago. 
For me it has stood the test. It has been 
tried on ; it has accomplished results ; it has 
influenced men in their lives ; it has altered 
their spirit. It is not a question whether the 
outcome has been little or much ; that does 
not affect my own thought, whatever influence 
it may have on other people. It has proven 
to me that men could do something beside 
"talk and speculate." I grow tired of phil- 
osophy. For ages the debate has gone on as 
to the true idea of the Deity, the historic 
value of the Scriptures, the relative worth of 
the various sects or religions. But amid all 
the discussions there existed the other press- 



ing query, why something more could not be 
done to influence the lives of men. To make 
one individual a better man, to inspire him 
with higher motives and purer purposes, may 
be worth for the future of the world as much 
as to prove or to disprove the historic value 
of any Bible. 

The one great problem for me was, if the 
enthusiasm could be concentrated on this 
other issue, the way we live and work, the 
kind of character we develop, and the human 
relationship in which we stand — whether it 
could inspire reforms, give strength to the 
enfeebled will, and induce persons to labor 
more for the benefit of their fellow men? If 
it could accomplish that result in the case of 
one single individual, the problem for me was 
settled. Human nature in its elements is 
everywhere the same. It matters not at the 
present moment whether this tendency or 
change of emphasis has reached few or many. 
If it could have such effect on one man, in 
ages to come it might have the same effect on 
all the world. Little by little, here and there 
an instance, I have seen this new spirit ac- 
complish that result. 

And now at the end of these five years of 
work, my own attitude of mind is taken. I 



10 



believed formerly in this work theoretically 
as a possibility. Throughout these various 
years in all the efforts, it has never crossed 
my mind to doubt it. To-day I believe in it 
as an established fact. From this time on 
this new spirit or tendency that I see spread- 
ing abroad, is lifted for me above the question 
of momentary success or failure. It makes 
no difference to me now in my belief with re- 
gard to it, whether any special effort in this 
direction triumphs or succeeds. If I knew 
that after another generation the movement 
were to die out, the new emphasis to have 
lost its force, if there should not be a single 
person in all the two hemispheres lifting up 
his voice for this other aspect of religion, if 
there were no organized effort in this new di- 
rection, it would not alter in the slightest de- 
gree my personal conviction. From the little 
that has come under my observation in these 
last few years, it now stands to me as indubi- 
table belief, that in the ages to come — though 
when and how far off I cannot say — this 
spirit or tendency amid every change, will be 
the one securely surviving fact for the future 
religion and the future Church ; just as I am 
satisfied that it had its start as a teaching in 
those early leaders, whom we look upon as 



11 



the founders of the existing religions and the 
existing Church. 

This experience has established for me the 
fact that the disposition to mutual helpful- 
ness lies back in human nature, and is prior 
in its origin to any or all specific religions. 
It has made certain in my mind the fact that 
the human will has something to lean upon in 
itself ; that there is a craving after a higher 
life in the human consciousness, whence- 
soever this spirit may have been given. And 
I stand as firm to-day in the conviction, from 
practical experience, as I stood five years ago 
from abstract reflection, that this moral im- 
pulse, with its hunger after righteousness, 
will rise into ever greater and greater signifi- 
cance, as human nature advances to a clearer 
comprehension of its own character and pos- 
sibilities. 

Human nature has a saving motive in itself, 
whencesovever the saving power may come. 
We can trust to this, and rely on it in hope- 
fulness, whatever possible changes may or 
may not come in the world's historic faiths. 

What this new Emphasis on Ethics is to 
mean, could, of course, be expressed in a bare, 
abstract form. It implies a deeper under- 
standing of a certain truth ; and, on the other 



12 



hand, it conveys the greater appreciation of 
the way that truth should manifest itself in 
human society. We carry in our minds the 
consciousness that from earliest times the at- 
tention of mankind has been centred on the 
two ideas, of "God" and the "Law of 
Right." But there is another fact that has 
been slowly developing in the thoughts of 
men, and that is, that this something called 
" The Law of Right " stands in equal conse- 
quence to what we call "God." It, too, is 
immutable and unchangeable, which " was in 
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world 
without end." To this Law of Right we are 
to pay the same respect, awe and reverence, 
which we may also pay to the idea of God, 
This would be the abstract truth conveyed to 
us in the Sovereignty of Ethics. 

Ethical science is to establish the fact that 
there is a Law of Right- Living, which we are to 
implicitly obey, just as the science of theology 
may strive to establish the truth that there is 
a Deity, whom we are loyally to worship. 
This law should hold and continue firm, exact 
the same unswerving submission from our will- 
power, independent of whatever might occur 
or of whatever changes might take place, in 
that other science of theology. This was the 



13 



abstract truth, which came to me, as it has to 

rnanv others, and that I have wanted to teach 
and preach and help to establish in the minds 
of other people. This was the point to which 
I had come, on leaving the library, the study 
or the university. 

But it has to be acknowledged that my un- 
derstanding of the actual meaning of this 
work and Avhat it has to do, has changed very 
much, because it has become enlarged for me. 
Experience can do for a man's opinion what 
all the thought and study in the library can 
never accomplish. It is one thing to have a 
certain belief which you have formed through 
long reading and speculation in the history of 
human thought, or in the world's universal 
history ; it is something quite different to try it 
on, to put it to the test in daily life, where 
history is now being made. The libraries are 
crowded in their upper shelves with such worn- 
out beliefs or reflections. No man ever takes 
down those dust-covered volumes, save the 
antiquarian. 

The schools of learning and the daily life of 
the great majority of men constitute two differ- 
ent worlds. They rarely come in direct touch 
with one another. We lead such a peculiar 
existence in universities. We are absorbed in 



14 



Plato or Buddhism. Homer and Francis Ba- 
con are as near to us as our next-door neigh- 
bors. It is a life of pure reflection. Within 
that atmosphere of intellectual activity we 
think on the world's problem. We decide 
about human needs and, perhaps, work out in 
our thoughts the formula by which to estab- 
lish or bring about the millennium. We trav- 
el and observe, we try the various universi- 
ties; and then, when we assume that we are 
ready, the task begins of going out and put- 
ting the thing into operation. We undertake 
to bring our discoveries to the every day ex- 
perience of men. We fancy that the world is 
eager and waiting to be helped. We are 
ready with our intellectual panacea ; we set 
about to apply our formula and change the 
world. 

What a shock we have when we once be- 
gin the effort ! What a shiver of dismay runs 
through our veins when we set out to effect 
these changes and bring about this higher life 
among men ! It was all so charming in those 
moss-grown seats of learning, where the pro- 
blem of life was only an intellectual enigma 
that could be solved by a process of thinking ! 
And then we discover that the world outside 
is leading an entirely different life and takes 



15 



interest in altogether different things. It has 
little concern about the study of history ; it 
cares less for abstract speculation ; it does not 
know very much what we mean by pure re- 
flection. The man in the library has been 
solving the world's problem. The man out- 
side at work has been solving the other and 
more important question, of what to do with- 
in the next twenty-four hours. We discover 
by going out among men, that they are much 
more interested in real living, than in abstract 
reflection about the nature of life. What 
people want is a religion for what they are 
doing, rather than a world-philosophy. At 
last the student and thinker, after chafing in- 
ternally at what he considers the grubbing 
existence of the every-day man, wakes up 
some morning to the sudden conviction that 
he has been wrong in his method and that the 
other man was right. Reforms cannot have 
their full genesis in the library or the univer- 
sity. 

Will it be forgiven me if I am to this ex- 
tent personal in saying that this has been my 
own experience ! I, too, wanted to help or 
reform the world with a philosophy. There 
was, in my thought, an intellectual panacea. 
According to my fancy, the result was to be 



16 



accomplished by getting at the minds of men 
and altering their convictions. What I dis- 
covered was, that the something men want- 
ed, was not a philosophy of existence, but 
an answer to the question, " What is to be 
done just now?" Life at this particular 
moment is the pressing problem. Keligious 
teachers are to be interested in what the rest 
of the world is interested. Practical life is 
what calls for our attention. Frankly, it 
must be acknowledged that I have learned 
more in this respect from the men I sought 
to help, than I have been able to give help to 
them. Instead of endeavoring to draw men 
away from this intense, on-rushing life of the 
world, up into the pure life of the spirit; it 
became plain to me that the thing to be striven 
for, was to put the life of the spirit out into 
that eager, on-rushing life of the world. 

It may do very well to constantly lay stress 
in beautiful or abstract form on the principle 
of righteousness. Eeligious teaching has been 
doing that, at least to some extent, for the 
last three thousand years. But the trouble 
has been, and still is, that men are very much 
disposed to have lofty feelings about right- 
eousness, while going on living just as before; 
precisely as men have been inclined to worship 



17 



the Deity, rather than to have in their hearts 
the real spirit of God. 

The new Emphasis on Ethics cannot stop 
with merely talking about the abstract truth. 
We shall accomplish very little by merely 
throwing the stress of our enthusiasm on the 
idea. The pressure of attention needs to be 
rather on this Law of Eight-Living as put in 
actual operation ; so as to find those methods 
by which we can realize it in concrete form 
in the world. It is just at this point where 
is to come the distinguishing feature of this 
new tendency. Eeligious teaching has been 
losing its influence on the public mind, be- 
cause it could not apply itself to the actual 
daily affairs of human life. It has been al- 
most impossible to find the bond between the 
week day and the Sunday. Whether, by 
throwing the stress on moral questions, it 
may be possible to restore the right kind of 
hold for religion, is the problem to be solved 
by a true Ethical Movement. 

What has to be done is to shift the stress 
of attention in public religious teaching to a 
different line of subjects. There needs to be 
an appeal to another class of emotions. In- 
stead of saying so much about worship, we 
are rather to brine: human thinking to the 



18 



practical questions of right and wrong. We 
should touch on those issues which are not 
far away, or concerned almost exclusively 
with the life beyond the grave, but those also 
which press close, very close, on the life 
of the week day. Men are rather to be 
made to think how they are living; they 
should have their attention called to the mis- 
takes in their doing. Practical righteousness 
is now the theme which calls for burning at- 
tention. It is the habits of life which are 
being neglected, the human relations that are 
being forgotten. We are living, and must 
live, the life of the world. Men are not given 
now-a-days a gospel by which to preserve the 
finer feelings, while living that life; the mo- 
tives for obedience to the sense of Duty are 
not stirred 01 worked upon, while men are in 
the world. We must bridge over this chasm. 
We are not to make the religious secular, but 
to make all that is secular truly religious. 
How we are to live just at this moment, what 
is my duty at this immediate hour, how am I 
to act inimy relations with my fellow men, 
what are my responsibilites to the family, to 
the city or the state ? These are the burning 
questions that need to be discussed and agi- 
tated. 



19 



II. 



What is needed is that we should lay stress 
on just those special elements of religion * 
which are quite independent of any changes 
that may come through historic research or 
philosophical speculation. This, it appears 
to me, would be the one method, by which to 
make the religious spirit absolutely sure and 
abiding for all coming time. There is just 
one place to look for those elements, and that 
is in human nature itself. That is the one 
thing which is universal. What we find there 
is sure ; because every man can know it by 
looking directly into his own consciousness. 
Philosophy or science cannot touch it. 

There should be something upon which all 
men could sympathize. The Brahmin, Mo- 
hammedan, Jew and Christian all have a com- 
mon human nature. There should be some- 
thing in them all, which could draw them all 
together. 

Now I believe there is one element or fact 
universal in human consciousness, and that is 
the desire to be a better man. It may exist 
very faintly ; it may almost perish from the 
heart. We may have become practically cal- 
lous to the desire ; but it has been in us at some 



20 



time or another in the course of our lives. 
No man in the depths of his feelings really 
is altogether content with what he is just at 
this moment; he would always like to be 
something else, a trifle better, a little further 
along in the scale of being. On this one is- 
sue the difference between men is only a mat- 
ter of degree. All persons could join hands 
on this one element of religion, whether it be 
the Bedouin Arab, the African savage, or 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Why not make this the starting point 
for the new effort in reform? Why not 
work on this universal desire ? We all want 
to be better ourselves ; we would like to have 
more perfect relations with men; we would 
be glad to have a higher social ideal. 

The new Emphasis on Ethics therefore 
would have for its purpose, to bring to the 
foreground this universal desire for something 
better and higher in ourselves and in human 
society. It would have for the subjects of its 
consideration every sphere where this motive 
or element could enter and be of consequence. 
For example, it implies that we should give 
supreme attention to such problems as "What y 
is Justice ? " It reminds us that we are to 
study and dwell on the theme "How Shall we 



21 



Preserve and Develop the Higher Life ? " It 
indicates that we are to take up such ques- 
tions as "The Ethics of Trades-Unionism." 
It thrusts on us the subject "Can a Man be 
Strictly Honest and be Successful in Busi- 
ness ? " It reminds us that if we do not give 
more concern to these problems, religion it- 
self will die out in the world. It would have 
us consider what kind of motives we should 
most encourage and develop in the human 
heart, for the sake of ourselves and our fellow 
men. 

It would not have us forget that there is a 
moral element in our political institutions. 
We are to study the influence of Jefferson 
and Hamilton and what they have done for 
us in this regard, just as religious teachers 
used to study exclusively the work of David 
or Saul and what they had done for the his- 
tory of Israel. Every nation is a chosen peo- 
ple. It is all sacred history. We must search 
for the moral element everywhere. We are 
to see how it has appeared and what influence 
it has exerted, through the great minds, such 
as George Eliot, Humboldt or Shakespeare. 
We are to think of the lives of leading men 
in past history, catch the stimulus of their 
effort, and make them an influence still, We 



22 



are to look for the good everywhere; to lose 
no trace of it wherever it may have appeared. 
We are to keep this particular element of re- 
ligion persistently before human attention. 
We are not to admit that there is anything 
secular ; we must make it all divinely religious. 
In a word, we are to be pressing, always 
pressing forward the perpetual query, "What 
is True Righteousness?" 

And I believe, in the true sense, we are to 
apply to this our purpose — in all reverence 
and single-heartedness — the same degree of 
ardor and enthusiasm, the same high feeling, 
the same sense of awe and consecration, which 
men have been accustomed to feel and display 
exclusively when they talked about Jesus or 
about Grod. 

The moral element is sacred everywhere. 
True devotion may consist not only in uttering 
beautiful thoughts or feelings about the Infi- 
nite and Unchangeable, but also in the kind of 
life we lead, or in the kind of character we de- 
velop. This element is the divine thread run- 
ning through history. Instead of giving our 
exclusive attention to the source whence it 
comes, shall we not also think and reflect on 
the thing itself ? How to make this life on 
earth better and higher — that is the theme 



23 



which at the present moment should be the 
supreme object of human attention; and in 
giving it that degree of interest, in the best 
sense, we are paying the truest worship to the 
Infinite Power that men call God. 

It is true that this new movement can never 
draw to itself the general enthusiasm that 
may be given to the study of science or his- 
tory. There is another purpose in view. A 
different kind of feeling is awakened. Those 
who make a special study of history and natu- 
ral science, are usually disposed to lay stress 
on the fact of universal progress, — on the 
tendency upward in nature and the human 
world. What the Ethical Teacher has to do 
is precisely the contrary. He is to discour- 
age men from trusting to the outside meth- 
ods or to the results of nature. He has to 
stir them to feel that what they have to do, 
is to render their share in helping forward 
this progress. He has to dwell constantly on 
selfishness everywhere; he has to point out 
the difference between class and class ; he has 
to lay stress on the lack of business integrity ; 
he is forced to be always telling men that the 
world is not going to be any better unless 
they make it better themselves. Bare study 
in science and history, leads men to feel com- 



24 



fortable. It awakens a trust in the law of 
evolution. It induces people to sit still and 
think the world is going to develop itself. 
What this other teaching has to do is to awaken 
a practical sense of discomfort ; to make men 
unhappy ; to arouse' in them a feeling of dis- 
quiet, — in order that they may be impressed 
with the circumstance that it rests upon them 
to do a portion of the world's work; that, in 
a word, they are to be the agents themselves 
to bring about this evolution. 

For this reason, it may be assumed that 
this new tendency is a radical movement. We 
touch at this point on the difference between 
the true radical and the true conservative. 
The latter individual is said to lay stress on 
the circumstance that the present situation is 
about as good as the conditions admit of, and 
that, if changes are needed, they come them- 
selves by the process of evolution. The rad- 
ical always feels that the world can and ought 
to be better, and that we can make it better if 
we try. Science and history do their work 
on the mind; ethics has to influence the will. 
It is a painful task always to be asserting the 
unfavorable conditions. It would be easy and 
pleasant to take the attitude of the optimist. 
But, as a matter of fact, the majority of men 5 



25 



mil always incline enough, as it is, to that 
position; they will only be pessimists with 
regard to what might happen to themselves. 
The truth, nevertheless, stands fixed and 
plain: The world is not right! What we 
have to do is to change and improve it. To 
emphasize and repeat over and over again 
this assertion, must be one of the functions 
of the new Ethical Movement. 

It is to be admitted also that this move- 
ment can never, in the full sense of the word, 
become popular with men. It may be many 
generations, if not centuries, before it can 
have the sympathy of the millions. Its stress 
must always be on the less tangible elements 
of reform. Its leaders must be idealists. 
Their interest and enthusiasm will be cen- 
tered on the changes which are to be effected 
in individual character, rather than in the 
transformation to be brought about in the 
social organism. But the average world is 
more interested in externals. Men cannot all 
of them be idealists. What is outside of us 
must absorb a great deal of human attention ; 
naturally the majority will be thinking rather 
of the changes there. The Ethical Teacher will 
also be interested in those changes, but he 
will always be looking at them with the ulte- 



26 



rior purpose, as to how they are going to per- 
manently influence the lives of men. 

The science of ethics must assume it for a 
fact, that the elemental source or root of ac- 
tion is human motive. The great problem, 
therefore, is how this supreme element is to 
be influenced and elevated. Eeforms which 
do not affect motives, will not come to stay. 
This new movement, therefore, is compelled 
rather to keep forward the fact which has been 
gathered from the laws of all history, — that 
improvements in institutions can never rise 
very much above the level of the individual 
human nature for which the improvement is 
intended. This is the one truth liable to be 
forgotten by the social agitator. The differ- 
ence between him and the ethical teacher must 
be, therefore, mainly a question of stress. It 
is quite true that external changes must go 
hand in hand with reforms in the internal na- 
ture or character. The two will mutually act 
and react upon one another. But the neg- 
lected feature is more often this element of 
improvement in the inner self of the human 
being. It is essential, therefore, that a cer- 
tain class of men should lay the emphasis of 
their teaching in this other direction. But, 
at the same time, it is equally true that the 



27 



Ethical Teacher should also be something of 
a Social Agitator, just as the Social Agitator 
should be something of an Ethical Teacher. 

It is to be admitted also that this new em- 
phasis must be, to some extent, cold and au- 
stere. There will be less of the emotional in 
its efforts, than in the worship of the super- 
natural. At the same time this is partially a 
matter of accident, and may not be a perma- 
nent condition. Eeligious feelings have been 
for ages connected more especially with that 
which is remote and super-sensible. What 
goes on before the eyes in the week-day life 
of men, has been too often regarded as com- 
mon-place. Morality, right living, righteous- 
ness, these have suffered; because they are 
almost exclusively concerned with this daily 
life of men here on earth. It takes a long- 
time for a neglected element to become en- 
shrined once more in our most sacred feelings. 
But who shall say that the period may not 
come, when men shall transfer a part of those 
feelings of awe and sacredness to what con- 
cerns just this every-day lif e ; until we have 
removed from human thought the notion that 
any event can be common-place save to the 
common-place soul. We may then be able, in 
the full sense of the word, to have the Law 



28 



of Eight-Living stir our hearts with all that is 
best, deepest and purest in religious emotion. 
The social ideals at the present time already 
have that refining, exalting effect on certain 
persons. Men have died for the cause of 
justice, as others have died for their faith in 
God. 

It is inevitable also that there should be 
the one noticeable weakness in this new Em- 
phasis on Ethics, which always seems to go 
with a new reform movement. We have to 
confess it in humility and shame. It has 
been a defect of the Radicalism which desires 
changes or reforms in human thinking or 
character, that men usually want them more 
especially for other people. They desire 
movements by which they can prove them- 
selves right to the rest of the world. They 
would like to convince other men of their own 
superior intellectual position. They would 
be glad to have this Ethical Movement exist 
as an agitation to establish freedom of thought 
in religion, and to argue away the beliefs of 
other men. There are people who would be 
very glad of reforms which would give them 
more of the goods of this world; but when it 
comes to reforms in their own feelings or 
character, they prefer to have other persons 
make the first experiment. 



29 



But if the new Emphasis on Ethics has one 
work more than another to do, it is to make it 
plain that if men have any care to improve 
and change the rest of the world, they must 
do it by first changing and improving them- 
selves. The higher religious spirit, the finer 
feelings, the purer elements of character, 
come to men less through preaching than by 
example. What we have to accomplish is 
to make it plain to all the world, that whether 
we may or may not retain the old beliefs, we 
still do care to rise in the moral sphere, and 
that we still have it in us as a motive to labor 
for the welfare of our fellow men. If we 
ever prove this in our own lives, then even 
though we never preach nor teach, nor organ- 
ize a Church, we shall have laid the founda- 
tion for a new Ethical Movement. 

No, the higher Eadicalism has another task 
before it. We are at the critical epoch in 
human history when the aspirations of men 
are at the moment of decline or shipwreck. 
It is not a question of convincing persons as 
to this or that or the other position, either in 
morality or the sphere of religion. Men do 
not change their elementary beliefs from ar- 
gument. I care not whether other individuals 
accept my particular utterances or opinions. 



30 



It is not a question of laying down or estab- 
lishing any special theory of reform. It is 
rather the consideration of persuading our- 
selves and other men, to view this life of ours 
in all its details from another and higher 
standpoint. What we need to do is to induce 
men to think, think, think on these questions 
in the sphere of morality. 

The great purpose before us to-day is not 
to eliminate or do away with other men's be- 
liefs ; but to put down if we can that con- 
temptible parvenue called "expediency," 
which more than anything else is making rot- 
ten our whole modern civilization. The world 
is beginning to talk about character as men 
talk about the tariff. It is what they call 
business. It is just these habits of mind 
which are so perilous. If we can once change 
this way of looking at things, I feel that the 
final result will take care of itself. If men 
will let that desire, to be better themselves 
and to have a better human society, act as 
a motive and as a consideration in their think- 
ing and their conduct, then in the long run 
this other higher habit of mind will shape 
life and our social institutions in the right 
direction. What a man is interested in, the 
way he has of looking at things, will have 



31 



more influence with him than any particular 
views or opinions that we may give him. A 
true Ethical Movement therefore need not 
concern itself with giving special opinions or 
theories. Its works should be, to be con- 
stantly viewing life from this other standpoint, 
treating every issue from this higher consid- 
eration ; and so, little by little, more and more, 
influencing these interests and general habits 
of viewing the world. 

What matters it, therefore, whether the 
ethical leaders may be right or wrong in their 
specific opinions on particular questions! 
What they are to accomplish is not to con- 
vert men to their personal views ; it is rather, 
by giving utterance to these other feelings, by 
constantly discussing questions from this oth- 
er stand-point, that they stamp it on the con- 
sciousness of men, that there is some other 
kind of a standard than this vile upstart termed 
Expediency. If we do not effect this, nature 
itself will make us feel the penalty. These 
"treasures of earth" can no more be taken up 
into the soul, than they can be carried with us 
to Heaven. 

This Emphasis on Ethics has changed some- 
what in its meaning for me. It was to me, for 
the most part, a series of negative proposi- 



32 



tions. To-day it is something positive and 
real. I have done with the spirit of denial. 
My consciousness is filled with the one thought, 
that we have a work to do. There is no use 
in having any statement of principles. There 
should be a sense of union just through the 
common spirit we feel. We may differ in a 
multitude of ways ; we may each have our 
own views as to specific reforms. One may 
be an individualist; another a communist; 
a third may lean to socialism. We may be- 
long to different political parties. We may 
have our own basis of philosophy. One may 
be an intuitionalist ; another may lean to utili- 
tarianism ; some may find their help more from 
Emanuel Kant, others may draw it from 
Hegel or John Stuart Mill. We may think 
diversely with regard to the idea of immortal- 
ity or of Grod. 

But amid all these differences there is this 
common purpose : we are convinced that 
there is this higher standard. We are to 
keep on talking about it, studying it, making 
it the basis for our judgments of ourselves 
and of the rest of the world. The problem 
now is, not what is to be thought, but what is 
to be done. Human ambition has changed; 
it is bent now on getting something out of 



33 



this life on earth. There is no use struggling 
against the tendency. The mastery over na- 
ture has given the multitude a hope which can 
never again be quenched. While the natural 
world was so much of a mystery, it cowed 
human effort. It is still something of a mys- 
tery ; but men have learned, nevertheless, how 
to use it. The human will is set now on assert- 
ing its mastery, determined to find a life worth 
living in this present existence. 

An Ethical Movement must meet this situ- 
ation. Never in all history has there been an 
epoch when civilization was in greater peril. 
We may get all the physical comforts, Ave 
may acquire the mastery over nature ; and yet 
at the same time the finer feelings may die 
out from the hearts of men. "Man cannot 
live by bread alone." With these new dis- 
coveries there is the appalling danger that 
the human mind may misuse its opportunities, 
and that the higher aspirations may perish 
from neglect, under the influence of these new 
gifts and revelations. 

Eeligious teaching can have but one task at 
the present moment before it: it must adjust 
itself to these new conditions. For a time, 
it may have to look away from the subjects 
which have heretofore absorbed its attention. 



34 



The problem now is : how shall we keep up 
the higher standard of character, the purer 
motives, which alone can perpetuate our civ- 
ilization. • Eighteousness now must be made to 
mean something, or it will die away from the 
earth. It must no longer be a hymn; it dare 
no further be simply a beautiful ideal. Ab- 
stract speculation must be brought within the 
sphere of utility. We must determine what 
is that Law of Eight-Living ; what it means 
here, and now, at this very moment, in these 
new conditions ; what it implies for us per- 
sonally, as well as in the life of the home; 
what it should be in all our social, economic 
and political institutions. 

I know well what it means to discuss these 
questions. We can all appreciate the diffi- 
culty that is involved in Applied Ethics. The 
capitalist class is anxious and worried when 
we treat of Nationalism, Trades-Unionism or 
Socialism. The mere agitation of a question 
appears often like a concession to that posi- 
tion. Yet who, after all, should deal with 
such problems, if not Ethical Teachers? 
These questions are in everybody's thoughts; 
they will be discussed under any circum- 
stances. Surely it were far better to bring 
them to some extent within the sphere of 



35 



moral agitation, than to leave them as exclu- 
sively the problems of business or eco- 
nomics. The working class is anxious that 
we should take sides with them, and choose 
just their reforms. It distrusts us because 
we cannot take just their standpoint. Never- 
theless, the Ethical Leader is the one indi- 
vidual who dare not side with any class. He 
is to struggle with all his might to inculcate 
that higher spirit of reform, that should in- 
clude all classes, because it is universal. 

It has been said that in laying this new 
Emphasis on Ethics we are giving up the old 
faith. Persons have intimated that they could 
not sympathize with us, because, as they said, 
it was impossible to surrender their feeling 
for the prophets or for Jesus. What that 
means it is not easy for me to understand. Did 
they not talk about practical righteousness ? 
For my own part, in dealing with this vital 
question, I feel myself nearer to the spirit of 
Isaiah and Jesus than when I am attending 
the service of the Church. Others have 
said that, what we were trying to do was, 
after all, to convert men back to the old re- 
ligions, to restore their faith in the charac- 
ters of the Bible. What this means, too, I 
cannot understand. If this truth or spirit 



36 



for which we are contending, be exclusively 
contained in the old religions; then I say, 
with all my heart, let us all, every man and 
woman, go back and take up the old re- 
ligions. My supreme attention is on this one 
fact or this one consideration. Whence it 
came; who gave it birth; who may claim 
its possession, — all that is of no consequence 
to me. Those are the questions which we can 
safely leave history to solve, by its own pro- 
cess of evolution. But this other problem, 
what is to be done here and now in elevating 
and purifying the hearts of men, in lifting 
once more the standard of morality, in 
quickening and enlarging inward motives, 
this is what we dare not leave to the mere 
external laws of development. It is what we 
ourselves must do and accomplish. 

But while we are centering our interest in 
this one direction, in what we teach and in 
what we preach; it is not to be forgotten 
that a book, a sermon or an address which 
may not once mention the names of the 
prophets, of Jesus or of God, may neverthe- 
less be full of the spirit of the prophets, of 
Jesus and of God. 

And so I believe there should be Societies 
organized for the exclusive purpose of laying 



this new Emphasis on Ethics. Books may 
be written upon it; but that is not enough. 
The press may agitate it, and that may help. 
The Church may contribute its share. But 
they cannot any of them do the work com- 
pletely. If we are to bring a neglected ele- 
ment in religion back into its true significance 
and importance in history, we may have to 
do it by giving, for the time being, almost 
our exclusive concern to it. In order to ac- 
complish the result, it may even be necessary 
to give this aspect an exaggerated degree of 
interest. 

Furthermore, I believe that such Societies 
should hold their services and have their ad- 
dresses or sermons, not simply during the 
week days, but on Sunday mornings. It is 
essential that the peculiar significance at- 
tached to that period of the week, be brought 
to bear on this particular aspect of religion. 
We must make it emphatically clear that 
ethical problems are not secular. We must 
throw about them the peculiar feelings of 
depth, sacredness and consecration, that be- 
long to a religious service. By doing this 
we shall not be antagonizing, but rather help- 
ing forward the cause of religion. Christ- 
endom has consecrated that one day to the 



deepest problems of existence. We need to 
take that time for these practical questions 
of right-living, in order to make it clear that 
they too belong to those deepest and most im- 
portant problems. By the very separateness 
with which we emphasize this other tendency, 
we must establish its identity with that which 
is highest and best in religion. People should 
be invited to the services, just as they would 
to the services of the Church. They may be 
members both of Church and Ethical Society. 
They may go on one Sunday to one, and on 
another Sunday to the other. But the Ethical 
Society should do its work by itself, in order 
to give the necessary degree of stress to its 
efforts in the new direction. 

But if there should be separate Ethical So- 
cieties devoted to this one purpose, there 
should also be a special class of lecturers or 
clergy, educated in this other particular di- 
rection. Instead of being taught in compar- 
ative religions, they should have courses in 
economics and political science. Instead of 
the study in theology, there should be years 
of preparation given to the history of philos- 
ophy and the science of Ethics. In place of 
so much time being given to the literature of 
the Hebrews, they should rather have pro- 



longed training in the ethical tendencies of the 
great writers of the modern world. Instead 
of constant devotion to abstract problems, 
they should give their attention to Applied 
Ethics. They should be familiar with the la- 
bor problem, with the social and political agi- 
tation of the day. Their one purpose should 
be to bring the moral standard to bear on 
practical issues in the sphere of commerce, 
social and personal life, or the state. They 
should not be men of the library or the study ; 
but in the highest sense, they should be men 
of the world. 

This Ethical Movement must be a practical 
faith. It should be a business man's religion. 
It ought to be a busy people's religion. The 
most cultured and refined can draw help from 
it. The most illiterate and ignorant can learn 
something from it. Culture comes rather in 
the very process of living, than in the search 
after knowledge. Refined feelings develop 
by the way we act, just as much as through 
any form of worship. 

Religious teaching all over the world needs 
to lift on high once more this banner of jus- 
tice and right-living. It should beg and plead ; 
it should urge that men weigh public and pri- 
vate questions from this stand-point. The 



40 



work has begun ; it has touched the hearts of 
the few. The tendency is abroad. Serious 
minds are catching its spirit. The Church 
itself is developing in this new direction. An 
Ethical Movement is arising everywhere, with- 
out distinction of sect or creed. It consists 
of the serious and earnest individuals who, 
in the presence of this possible downfall of 
high character and nobler manhood, are be- 
coming more and more willing to forget the 
other differences, to lose sight of all diversi- 
ties of belief, in order to concentrate their in- 
terests in rescuing this moral standard from 
extinction. The spirit which now exists 
among a few, may by and by reach out over 
the world ; and then all the world will be an 
Ethical Society. 

And so I conclude by giving, perhaps, the 
most beautiful expression that has yet ap- 
peared in literature, with reference to a possi- 
ble Ethical Church : 

"There will be a new church, founded on 
"moral science; at first cold and naked, a 
"babe in a manger again, the algebra and 
"mathematics of ethical law, the church of 
' ' men to come ; but it will have heaven and 
* ' earth for its beams and rafters ; science for 
* ' symbol and illustrations ; it will fast enough 
" gather to itself beauty, music, pictures, 



41 



"poetry. Was never stoicism so stern and 
" exigent as this shall be? It shall send man 
"home to his central solitude; shame these 
" social, supplicating manners; and make him 
" know that much of the time he must have 
" himself to his friend. He shall expect no co- 
-operation; he shall walk with no conrpan- 
" ion. The nameless Thought, the nameless 
"Power, the super-personal Heart — he shall 
"repose alone on that. He needs only his 
" own verdict. No good fame can help, no 
" bad fame can hurt him. The Laws are his 
"consolers; the good Laws themselves are 
' ' alive ; they know if he have kept them ; 
" they animate him with the leading of great 
"duty and an endless horizon. Honor and 
' ' fortune exist to him who always recognizes 
"the neighborhood of the great — always 
"feels himself in the presence of high 
' ' causes . ; ' — Ralph Waldo Emerson . 



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